"How do you stop it?"
Kylus laughed once, bitter.
"You don’t."
He reached to his belt and pulled out another capsule, holding it between two fingers.
"Helix-9," he said. "Temporary suppression. Forces the compound into a dormant phase. Scrambles its current pattern long enough for your body to breathe."
"How long?" Xavier asked.
"A month," Kylus replied. "Sotis more."
His gaze hardened.
"But now... it only lasts weeks at a ti."
He looked at Lyra again, sothing unsettled flickering across his face.
"Hers didn’t even last an hour."
Requiem leaned closer. "If it’s adapting that fast..."
"It ans it’s stronger in her," Kylus finished. "Or it’s evolved differently."
Xavier didn’t look away from Lyra.
"And have you been looking for a cure?"
"For ten years," Kylus said. "Every lab that wouldn’t report . Every underground biotech surgeon who didn’t ask questions."
"And?"
"It rewrites itself," Kylus said. "You think you’ve cornered it, it shifts. You think you’ve isolated it, it mutates."
Lyra’s fingers tightened suddenly around Xavier’s sleeve.
Kylus stood there for a mont longer, watching Lyra’s breathing grow thinner in Xavier’s arms. Sothing in his expression shifted, not softening, just settling into a decision he didn’t like. He reached back to his belt and removed another vial, holding it between his fingers as the liquid inside caught the light from the burning wreckage around them.
"That’s the last one," he said, voice steady but tight. "After this, I’ve got nothing left."
He threw it to Xavier.
Xavier caught it and was already moving before the capsule fully settled in his palm. Lyra’s pulse stuttered under his fingers, heat rising unnaturally through her skin as her body fought sothing it couldn’t overpower.
He pressed the injector into her arm and triggered it, holding her steady while the serum entered her bloodstream.
Her body reacted imdiately. A tremor ran through her fra, deeper than muscle, sothing internal resisting and then recalibrating. The strain along her neck eased gradually. The tightness in her breathing loosened. Her pulse slowed from its frantic rhythm into sothing that held.
Reva leaned in closer, watching every change with sharp, unblinking focus. Lyra’s breathing deepened again, not forced this ti, not struggling. The tension drained out of her hands. Her grip loosened.
A few seconds later, her eyes closed.
She had fallen asleep.
Kylus watched Lyra for a few seconds longer, gauging the rhythm of her breathing as if asuring sothing against mory. When he spoke again, his voice had lost the edge it carried earlier.
"She won’t last long on field suppression," he said. "If that strain inside her is adapting this quickly, the next crash will be worse."
Reva didn’t look up from Lyra. "Then say sothing useful."
"I am," Kylus replied. "My ship still has intact lab modules. Not hospital-grade, but better than standing in a crater waiting for her body to burn itself out. I can run molecular reads. Compare her mutation pattern against mine. If I can isolate how her variant shifted, I might be able to adjust the stabilizer."
Rin gave a short, disbelieving exhale. "You’re offering help now?"
Kylus t his stare evenly. "I don’t benefit from her dying."
That answer hung between them, blunt and unsentintal.
Xavier lifted his head and looked at Reva.
"Go with him," he said.
Reva finally turned toward him fully. "You serious?"
"Yes." he nodded.
"You’re basing that on what exactly?"
"Instinct."
Her eyes narrowed. "That’s not enough."
"It is for ."
Silence settled again, heavier now. The smoke drifting across the basin carried the faint sll of burnt alloy and blood. Lyra shifted faintly in Requiem’s hold, still asleep, still steady for the mont.
Reva held Xavier’s gaze longer this ti, searching for hesitation and finding none.
"If this goes wrong," she said quietly, "there won’t be a second chance."
"I know."
Reva didn’t step aside when Xavier moved.
He walked toward Rin and Viola, but she caught his arm before he passed fully, her grip firm enough to make him stop.
"You’re not walking off like this," she said.
He looked down at her hand, then back at her face. "I’m not walking off. I’m stepping away."
She searched his expression again, as if expecting to see doubt crack through it. "You just handed her over to a man who hunted us across a planet."
"And he just handed over the only thing keeping her alive," Xavier replied, pulling his arm free without force.
Rin shifted closer, sword still in hand, eyes moving between Kylus’ crew and the wreckage around them. "You sure about this?"
Xavier stepped closer to him instead of answering imdiately. His voice lowered.
"If anything feels off," he said, "you don’t wait for confirmation. Cut down everything."
Rin gave a slow nod.
Viola hadn’t moved from her position, but her posture had changed. Weight forward. Attention sharp. She didn’t need instructions repeated.
Arlen stepped in front of Xavier next, frustration cutting through the exhaustion on her face. "Where are you going?"
"Helior Pri."
"Now?" she asked, incredulous. "In the middle of all this?"
He glanced toward the distant skyline where the city lights shimred faintly beyond the ruined basin. "I left sothing behind."
Reva folded her arms across her chest. "You don’t leave sothing behind in the middle of a war."
He didn’t smile. "I do."
"You could at least pretend to explain." Arlen remarked.
"I’ll bring your things too," he said. "You won’t have to co back for anything."
Reva stared at him for a long second, then looked past him at Lyra being carefully lifted by Kylus and his assistant.
"If she crashes again—"
"She won’t," Xavier said.
That wasn’t confidence. It was a statent he needed to believe.
Requiem looked at Xavier. "Be quick."
Xavier t his eyes and gave a small nod.
There were more things unsaid between them than spoken.
He turned then and began walking toward the edge of the basin. The ground crunched beneath his boots, broken stone and tal shifting with each step. He didn’t look back again.
Behind him, Kylus and his assistant carried Lyra toward their ship, moving carefully over unstable terrain. Rin and Viola repositioned without speaking, flanking the path.
Reva watched Xavier until he beca smaller against the glow of Helior Pri.
She didn’t like it. She wanted to stop him. She felt like sothing disastorous would happen if she let Xavier go alone.
But she let him go.
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